or
Looking to list your PhD opportunities? Log in here.
The School of Languages, Cultures and Societies is one of the UK’s leading centres for research and teaching in languages and cultures. Our academic community works across a variety of key themes including European works of literature from the medieval age to the 21st century, the Arab world, the cultures of South East Asia, gender, film, translation and interpreting, linguistics and language computing, and many more.
You can study for your PhD on-campus or by online learning.
Studying for your PhD in the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies means that you'll become an expert in a specialist area and develop high-quality research skills, which will prepare you for further research projects in addition to pursuing specialist career paths.
As a postgraduate researcher, you’ll conduct original research work under the guidance of your supervisors. You'll have regular meetings to monitor your progress and develop an initial training plan to make sure you are acquiring the appropriate skills for your research.
Your initial priority is refining a research plan and establishing a feasible timescale for your project. During the early part of your PhD, you'll undertake a range of research methods modules to support your research activities.
For your first year (or 18 months if you are part-time) you'll be enrolled as a provisional postgraduate researcher, you'll develop a detailed research proposal and write a literature review. This work is submitted to a panel of examiners who will assess it and provide you with feedback and advice on the progress of your research.
This is called 'transfer' which is an important means of monitoring the progress of your work and assessing whether your proposal has enough weight to be accurately explored through a PhD research path.
After successful transfer, you'll enrol as a full postgraduate researcher, complete your research and write a thesis of approximately 100,000 words.
The degree of Doctor of Philosophy is awarded on the basis of this thesis, and your viva voce, where you'll present and discuss the rationale, methods and findings of your original study with an examining panel.
A PhD can be taken full-time (3 years standard) or part-time (five years standard).
Research opportunities are available across the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies. You can explore our research areas to discover more about our academic staff and where your research interests may fit. You can search our research opportunities database to search for a supervisor in your area.
You should hold a good honours degree (upper second class or first class) in a related discipline. A Masters degree is not a formal requirement but your application will be seen more favourably if you have one - ideally you will have achieved, or be on track to achieve, a distinction or at least a high merit, especially in your Masters dissertation.
If English is not your first language, you'll also need an English language qualification, for example IELTS 6.5 with at least 6.0 in all components. The distance learning PhD requires IELTS score of 7.0 overall, no less than 6.5 in every component. For more details on alternative qualifications, see How to apply?
If you fall just short of the right IELTS level, you can improve your academic English to the standard needed to study a postgraduate research degree by taking one of the following pre-sessional courses:
We offer a variety of scholarships for PhD students. Check the scholarships page to see the range of opportunities.
Fees for PhD programmes are set independently and reviewed on an annual basis. Check the University's fee page for current information.
We offer a PhD by online learning which is available to UK, EU and international applicants, allowing you gain an advanced degree from anywhere with internet access. You can study at the time and place that best suits you, and our part time options lets you study alongside work and other commitments.
See our how to apply page for help with admissions.
For all enquiries, please contact the Graduate School Office ahcpgradmissions@leeds.ac.uk.
The university will respond to you directly. You will have a FindAPhD account to view your sent enquiries and receive email alerts with new PhD opportunities and guidance to help you choose the right programme.
Log in to save time sending your enquiry and view previously sent enquiries
The information you submit to University of Leeds will only be used by them or their data partners to deal with your enquiry, according to their privacy notice. For more information on how we use and store your data, please read our privacy statement.
Based on your current searches we recommend the following search filters.
Check out our other PhDs in Leeds, United Kingdom
Check out our other PhDs in African Studies
Start a new search with our database of over 4,000 PhDs
Based on your current search criteria we thought you might be interested in these.
Research degrees in the School of Media and Communication
University of Leeds
Research degrees in the School of Music
University of Leeds
Research degrees in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries
University of Leeds